A.    Checklist for Selecting Respondents

• Have you thought through who might hold the answer to your questions and how you will open opportunities to gather information from them?
• Is your question best answered by a population/ sample, key informants, cases or a combination of the above?
• Can you locate and access your respondents?
• Will you need to sample? If so, have you:

-  Defined your population?

-  Constructed a sample frame?

-  Determined appropriate sample size?

-  Employed an appropriate sampling strategy?

-  If you want your sample to be representative, have you considered strategies for ensuring you will not have a coverage error / non-response bias?

• If you will be working with key informants, have you:

-  Considered using individuals from a variety of roles, including experts, the experienced, leaders, the observant, gossips, those with secondary experience, insiders, stool pigeons and ‘ex’s?

-  Negotiated potential informant agendas?

-  Remembered your ethical responsibilities?

• If working with a case, have you:

-  Defined your case?

-  Selected an individual case or series of cases that meet your definition and sits within your case boundaries?